The landscape of college athletics is shifting because of conference realignment.
Some colleges will be left behind as the major conferences consolidate.
And Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody got involved in this nasty college football fight.
The Florida State University Seminoles have been one of the most successful programs in college football dating back to the program’s rise in the mid-1980s under Hall of Fame coach Bobby Bowden.
But the Seminoles, who play in the Atlantic Coast Conference, are facing the possibility of being left in the dust by teams in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and Big 10.
The ACC signed a 20-year television contract with ESPN in 2016 that pays schools about $17 million per season.
While the ACC tied its hands with a long-term ESPN deal, the SEC and Big 10 negotiated new television contracts that could pay schools as much as $70 million per year.
And the new television contract for the expanded College Football Playoff will pay ACC schools less money than the Big 10 and the SEC.
Florida State began exploring leaving the ACC to potentially join the SEC or the Big 10 but schools in the conference are locked into a grant-of-rights deal.
The ACC’s grant of rights transfers ownership of a school’s media rights back to the conference.
And the ACC would own the media rights to a school if it went to a new conference.
Florida State began the legal process of trying to get out of the ACC last December with a lawsuit.
The school estimated that it would owe the ACC around $570 million if it could not break its deal with the conference.
A legal battle is underway for Florida State to try and leave the ACC with as little financial hit as possible.
State of Florida gets involved in Florida State’s lawsuit against the ACC
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a lawsuit against the ACC, claiming that the conference was hiding contracts related to its television deal from Florida State in January.
Now she is suing the ACC to force the conference to release these documents.
“The ACC is asking a state entity—Florida State University—to potentially pay and lose more than a half a billion dollars but is refusing to produce the documents related to that outrageous price tag. We sent a public records request to the ACC in January, but they failed to fully comply. We are taking legal action against the ACC for wrongfully withholding these important public records,” Moody said.
Moody claims that the contracts are public records because they were made as part of the official business of a public university.
“The contracts are a public record because Florida State University (FSU) examines and uses the media rights contracts in the transaction of the agency’s official business. The contracts are also the product of delegated authority by FSU to the ACC,” Moody’s lawsuit stated.
Attorneys for the ACC contend that the contracts are confidential and should be kept private.
The battle over Florida State’s exit from the ACC could set in motion the next major domino in college sports realignment.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
